In the highlands of southern Brazil an anthropogenitcally driven expansion of forest occurred at ... more In the highlands of southern Brazil an anthropogenitcally driven expansion of forest occurred at the expense of grasslands between 1410 and 900 cal BP, coincident with a period of demographic and cultural change in the region. Previous studies have debated the relative contributions of increasing wetter and warmer climate conditions and human landscape modifications to forest expansion, but generally lacked high resoltiuon proxies to measure these effects, or have relied on single proxies to reconstruct both climate and vegetation. Here, we develop and test a model of natural ecosystem distribution against vegetation histories, paleoclimate proxies, and the archaeological record to distinguish human from temperature and precipitation impacts on the distribution and expansion of Araucaria forests during the late Holocene. Carbon isotopes from soil profiles confirm that in spite of climatic fluctuations, vegetation was stable and forests were spatially limited to south-facing slopes in the absence of human inputs. In contrast, forest management strategies for the past 1400 years expanded this economically important forest beyond its natural geographic boundaries in areas of dense pre-Columbian occupation, suggesting that landscape modifications were linked to demographic changes, the effects of which are still visible today. In the face of global climate change and intensifying population pressure, understanding the drivers of vegetation change is critical for developing appropriate conservation practices to secure global biodiversity. A pressing issue is the legacy of past human activity on landscapes. Traditional research methods have often been unable to uncou-ple the causal relationships among humans, climate, and vegetation, resulting in ongoing unresolved debates, which can result in ineffectual policy and can unnecessarily negatively impact local economies. An area of particular significance is the southern Brazilian highlands, which is part of the Atlantic Forest Biome. Recognised as a global diversity hotspot, the area represents an important region for conserving global diversity due to its floristic importance and modern conservation challenges 1. The keystone species of the forest is the iconic Araucaria tree. The tree is a valuable source of timber, fuel, and resin, and the seeds are an abundant and reliable food source that has been a critical component of indigenous economies. Today, of the 19 extant species, five are classified as endangered and two, including the Brazilian Araucaria angustifolia, are critically endangered. Between 1410 and 900 cal BP, forest expansion in the southern Brazilian highlands coincided with the growth of indigenous southern proto Jê populations and increasingly complex cultural institutions. The principal driver of this dynamic period have been debated 2–6. Did wetter climate drive forest expansion, providing a greater resource base that enabled community development? Or, did growing populations result in widespread
Excavations at Abreu Garcia provide a detailed case study of a mound and enclosure mortuary compl... more Excavations at Abreu Garcia provide a detailed case study of a mound and enclosure mortuary complex used by the southern proto-Jê in the southern Brazilian highlands. The recovery of 16 secondary cremation deposits within a single mound allows an in-depth discussion of spatial aspects of mortuary practices. A spatial division in the placement of the interments adds another level of duality to the mortuary landscape, which comprises: (1) paired mound and enclosures, (2) twin mounds within a mound and enclosure, and (3) the dual division in the mound interior. The multiple levels of nested asymmetric dualism evoke similarities to the moiety system that characterizes modern southern Jê groups, highlighting both the opposition and the complementarity of the social system. The findings offer deeper insight into fundamental aspects of southern proto-Jê social organization, including the dual nature of the community, the manifestation of social structure in the landscape, and its incorporation into mortuary ritual. The results have implications for research design and developing appropriate methodologies to answer culture-specific questions. Furthermore, the parallels among archaeology, ethnohistory, and ethnography enable an understanding of the foundation of modern descendent groups and an assessment of the continuity in indigenous culture beyond European contact. As escavações no sítio Abreu Garcia oferecem um estudo de caso detalhado de um conjunto de recintos e montículos funerários utilizado pelos grupos proto-Jê meridionais nas terras altas do sul do Brasil. A descoberta de dezesseis depósitos cremados secundários dentro de um único montículo permite uma discussão profunda da dos aspectos espaciais das práticas mortuárias. Uma divisão espacial na disposição dos enterramentos acrescenta outro nível de dualidade à paisagem mortuária, que compreende: (1) recintos e montículos dispostos em pares, (2) montículos duplos no interior de um único recinto, e (3) a divisão dual no interior do montículo. Os múltiplos níveis de dualismo assimétrico evocam similaridades com o sistema de metades que caracteriza os grupos Jê meridionais modernos, ressaltando tanto a oposição quanto a complementaridade no sistema social. As descobertas propiciam uma compreensão mais profunda dos aspectos fundamentais da organização social proto-Jê meridional, incluindo a natureza dual da comunidade, as manifestações da estrutura social na paisagem e a sua incorporação no rito mortuário. Os resultados têm implicações para o planejamento das pesquisas e desenvolvimento de metodologias apropriadas para responder questões culturais específicas. Além disso, os paralelos entre arqueologia, etno-história e etnografia permitem uma compreensão da fundação dos grupos descendentes modernos e uma avaliação da continuidade das culturas indígenaspara além do momento de contato com os europeus.
Identification of wood charcoal associated with earth ovens at a southern proto-Jê mortuary compl... more Identification of wood charcoal associated with earth ovens at a southern proto-Jê mortuary complex in Misiones, Argentina, are discussed in relation to a dual social structure. A distinct difference in form between the ovens in the east and west follow a pattern of asymmetry that manifests at multiple levels across the mortuary landscape. The asymmetry reflects a dual social structure that is the precursor to the moiety system employed by modern Jê groups. In the moiety system all people, things, and phenomena are assigned to a moiety in an all-encompassing classificatory system. The identification of charcoal as Jacaranda sp. in the western earth ovens matches the moi-ety associations and suggests a specific use of resources within ritual determined by the dual social system. The results have implications for understanding southern proto-Jê social formation, ritual practice, and resource management , as well as providing a cautionary note for the consideration of cultural formation when designing research questions and methodologies.
In this article, we examine the emergence of the funerary mound and enclosure complexes of the so... more In this article, we examine the emergence of the funerary mound and enclosure complexes of the southern Brazilian highlands during the last 1000 years in relation to processes of population expansion, contact, conflict and the establishment of frontiers. We test the hypothesis that such monuments emerged among the local southern proto-Jê peoples as a response to the migration of a foreign group, the Tupi-Guarani. We compared the spatio-temporal distribution of mound and enclosure complexes in respect to sites of interaction between the two groups. The results indicate that the rise of funerary architecture coincides with the first incursions of the Tupi-Guarani to the southern proto-Jê heartland, and that mounds are concentrated in areas devoid of interaction. We conclude that highly monumentalized landscapes emerged in areas where local groups chose not to interact with the Tupi-Guarani, showing that funerary monuments were an important component in the establishment of impermeable frontiers to resist outsiders.
In the highlands of southern Brazil an anthropogenitcally driven expansion of forest occurred at ... more In the highlands of southern Brazil an anthropogenitcally driven expansion of forest occurred at the expense of grasslands between 1410 and 900 cal BP, coincident with a period of demographic and cultural change in the region. Previous studies have debated the relative contributions of increasing wetter and warmer climate conditions and human landscape modifications to forest expansion, but generally lacked high resoltiuon proxies to measure these effects, or have relied on single proxies to reconstruct both climate and vegetation. Here, we develop and test a model of natural ecosystem distribution against vegetation histories, paleoclimate proxies, and the archaeological record to distinguish human from temperature and precipitation impacts on the distribution and expansion of Araucaria forests during the late Holocene. Carbon isotopes from soil profiles confirm that in spite of climatic fluctuations, vegetation was stable and forests were spatially limited to south-facing slopes in the absence of human inputs. In contrast, forest management strategies for the past 1400 years expanded this economically important forest beyond its natural geographic boundaries in areas of dense pre-Columbian occupation, suggesting that landscape modifications were linked to demographic changes, the effects of which are still visible today. In the face of global climate change and intensifying population pressure, understanding the drivers of vegetation change is critical for developing appropriate conservation practices to secure global biodiversity. A pressing issue is the legacy of past human activity on landscapes. Traditional research methods have often been unable to uncou-ple the causal relationships among humans, climate, and vegetation, resulting in ongoing unresolved debates, which can result in ineffectual policy and can unnecessarily negatively impact local economies. An area of particular significance is the southern Brazilian highlands, which is part of the Atlantic Forest Biome. Recognised as a global diversity hotspot, the area represents an important region for conserving global diversity due to its floristic importance and modern conservation challenges 1. The keystone species of the forest is the iconic Araucaria tree. The tree is a valuable source of timber, fuel, and resin, and the seeds are an abundant and reliable food source that has been a critical component of indigenous economies. Today, of the 19 extant species, five are classified as endangered and two, including the Brazilian Araucaria angustifolia, are critically endangered. Between 1410 and 900 cal BP, forest expansion in the southern Brazilian highlands coincided with the growth of indigenous southern proto Jê populations and increasingly complex cultural institutions. The principal driver of this dynamic period have been debated 2–6. Did wetter climate drive forest expansion, providing a greater resource base that enabled community development? Or, did growing populations result in widespread
Excavations at Abreu Garcia provide a detailed case study of a mound and enclosure mortuary compl... more Excavations at Abreu Garcia provide a detailed case study of a mound and enclosure mortuary complex used by the southern proto-Jê in the southern Brazilian highlands. The recovery of 16 secondary cremation deposits within a single mound allows an in-depth discussion of spatial aspects of mortuary practices. A spatial division in the placement of the interments adds another level of duality to the mortuary landscape, which comprises: (1) paired mound and enclosures, (2) twin mounds within a mound and enclosure, and (3) the dual division in the mound interior. The multiple levels of nested asymmetric dualism evoke similarities to the moiety system that characterizes modern southern Jê groups, highlighting both the opposition and the complementarity of the social system. The findings offer deeper insight into fundamental aspects of southern proto-Jê social organization, including the dual nature of the community, the manifestation of social structure in the landscape, and its incorporation into mortuary ritual. The results have implications for research design and developing appropriate methodologies to answer culture-specific questions. Furthermore, the parallels among archaeology, ethnohistory, and ethnography enable an understanding of the foundation of modern descendent groups and an assessment of the continuity in indigenous culture beyond European contact. As escavações no sítio Abreu Garcia oferecem um estudo de caso detalhado de um conjunto de recintos e montículos funerários utilizado pelos grupos proto-Jê meridionais nas terras altas do sul do Brasil. A descoberta de dezesseis depósitos cremados secundários dentro de um único montículo permite uma discussão profunda da dos aspectos espaciais das práticas mortuárias. Uma divisão espacial na disposição dos enterramentos acrescenta outro nível de dualidade à paisagem mortuária, que compreende: (1) recintos e montículos dispostos em pares, (2) montículos duplos no interior de um único recinto, e (3) a divisão dual no interior do montículo. Os múltiplos níveis de dualismo assimétrico evocam similaridades com o sistema de metades que caracteriza os grupos Jê meridionais modernos, ressaltando tanto a oposição quanto a complementaridade no sistema social. As descobertas propiciam uma compreensão mais profunda dos aspectos fundamentais da organização social proto-Jê meridional, incluindo a natureza dual da comunidade, as manifestações da estrutura social na paisagem e a sua incorporação no rito mortuário. Os resultados têm implicações para o planejamento das pesquisas e desenvolvimento de metodologias apropriadas para responder questões culturais específicas. Além disso, os paralelos entre arqueologia, etno-história e etnografia permitem uma compreensão da fundação dos grupos descendentes modernos e uma avaliação da continuidade das culturas indígenaspara além do momento de contato com os europeus.
Identification of wood charcoal associated with earth ovens at a southern proto-Jê mortuary compl... more Identification of wood charcoal associated with earth ovens at a southern proto-Jê mortuary complex in Misiones, Argentina, are discussed in relation to a dual social structure. A distinct difference in form between the ovens in the east and west follow a pattern of asymmetry that manifests at multiple levels across the mortuary landscape. The asymmetry reflects a dual social structure that is the precursor to the moiety system employed by modern Jê groups. In the moiety system all people, things, and phenomena are assigned to a moiety in an all-encompassing classificatory system. The identification of charcoal as Jacaranda sp. in the western earth ovens matches the moi-ety associations and suggests a specific use of resources within ritual determined by the dual social system. The results have implications for understanding southern proto-Jê social formation, ritual practice, and resource management , as well as providing a cautionary note for the consideration of cultural formation when designing research questions and methodologies.
In this article, we examine the emergence of the funerary mound and enclosure complexes of the so... more In this article, we examine the emergence of the funerary mound and enclosure complexes of the southern Brazilian highlands during the last 1000 years in relation to processes of population expansion, contact, conflict and the establishment of frontiers. We test the hypothesis that such monuments emerged among the local southern proto-Jê peoples as a response to the migration of a foreign group, the Tupi-Guarani. We compared the spatio-temporal distribution of mound and enclosure complexes in respect to sites of interaction between the two groups. The results indicate that the rise of funerary architecture coincides with the first incursions of the Tupi-Guarani to the southern proto-Jê heartland, and that mounds are concentrated in areas devoid of interaction. We conclude that highly monumentalized landscapes emerged in areas where local groups chose not to interact with the Tupi-Guarani, showing that funerary monuments were an important component in the establishment of impermeable frontiers to resist outsiders.
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